Say hello to Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down on Netflix as its star ratings are retired

We aren’t too excited about this one: Netflix has just announced that they’ll be replacing their long-time five star rating system with a simplified thumbs up/thumbs down approach.

The news came today at a press release with reporters, where Netflix’s VP of Product Todd Yellin shared the news, and also revealed that the idea has been tested with hundreds of thousands of users throughout 2016.

What was the catalyst that made up their minds? It’s simple: their A/B test between star-ratings and thumb ratings had a surprising result: the thumbs feature was used 200% more than the star-rating feature. That’s a pretty staggering amount!

The idea behind the change is that more interaction with ratings will allow Netflix to further tailor the experience to your likes and dislikes. A percent-match feature is being implemented alongside the rating change which will show how much of a match a piece of content is for your tastes on a scale from 1-100%. Shows that have less than a 50% match rating won’t show their rating, so it’s safe to say Netflix wants you to stare clear of those titles.

Hopefully this is the start of better Netflix recommendations for us bingers! Now, off for some Netflix and Chill…

About Author

Bryce Hilton is life-long gamer and avid anime enthusiast. When not playing Destiny, Heroes of the Storm, or Overwatch, he can be found catching up on the latest anime releases and geeking out to all things Zelda.

Dear Lytherus visitors: Our seven year journey as a fantasy and science fiction blog has come to a (hopefully temporary) end. As of September, we're entering an indefinite hiatus and are moving our operations over to Shurtugal.com, our sister site. There you'll be able to find familiar voices writing book reviews and reporting on the latest fandom news. We're not closing the door on Lytherus for good, as it's a project many of us would like to revisit in the future. For now, we encourage you to head over to Shurtugal.com to continue the adventure. Thanks for a wonderful seven years, and we hope to see you again soon!